Irregular Migration Governance in the East African Community: Assessing the Legal and Institutional Response

Abstract

Governance of irregular migration has recently occupied theagenda of most Regional Economic Communities. Theagenda is being sparked by the existing intersect betweenirregular migration and national security of partner states aswell as its implications to the economy and developmentbroadly. These initiatives also find justification in the fact thatmigration governance is increasingly cross-cutting andrequires cooperation between States and regions. One of themajor tools used to achieve regional cooperation in migrationgovernance is adoption of coherent policies and measures.This article surveys the East African Community (EAC) ' slegal and institutional frameworks designed to addressirregular migration in the region with a view to depicting theexisting gaps and their implications to irregular migrationgovernance. To achieve this objective, desk research and keyinformant interviews were the resorted methodologies. Thearticle finds that, the key challenges facing irregular migrationgovernance in the EAC are incomprehensive frameworks,implementation challenges, contradicting provisions in theEAC laws, incoherent institutional framework and securitychallenges. It is recommended that the identified challenges